The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts)

Dating from around 1520 and probably conceived as a pattern book, this manuscript is best described as a 'herbal and bestiary' and contains images of flora and fauna together with stylised, floriated ornaments and coloured alphabets. MS Ashmole 1504, which can best be described as a 'herbal and bestiary', contains images of flora and fauna together with stylised, floriated ornaments and coloured a...

In the 3rd talk in our Meet the Manuscripts series, you will learn how singers lived with change in their favourite songs, and hear carols of the Middle Ages both familiar and new. Have you ever come close to fisticuffs with a friend over the tune to which ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ should be sung? You’re experiencing a very old problem. The Bodleian’s Selden Carol Book is a famous collection of...

In this lecture, we look at some beautiful, austere, and distinctively uncomfortable manuscripts and learn how the Middle Ages shaped the way we read today both in print and on screen. Medieval manuscripts written in early English are familiar and yet foreign to us, not only for their language but also for their style. Like their cathedral counterparts, Gothic script and page design come across to...

Exploring their physical function in manuscripts – and the bad things that can happen when they are removed for study – as well as showing what they can contribute to book history. Leafing through a manuscript, it’s easy to ignore the fragments of other books that were often used to strengthen its binding or as endleaves to protect the beginning and end of the text. In this session the fragments a...

Join Professor Stephen Harris (Curator of Roots to Seeds at the Bodleian Library) and Dr Chris Thorogood, (Oxford Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum) as they discuss the past, present and future of botanical research and teaching. Discover how the herbarium of Bobart the Elder, John Sibthorp's 'Flora Graeca' expedition and the Amazonian waterlily have contributed to four centuries of Oxford bot...

In this online event, Ana Paula Cordeiro, the creator of Body of Evidence, speaks from the workshop in New York City where she produced it. She will be joined in conversation by Merve Emre, Associate Professor of American Literature. Body of Evidence (2020) is an artist's book that examines the role of documentary evidence in defining national and individual identity. The red, white, and blue of t...

As both audience members and actors, you will learn to sing the classic Easter sequence hymn 'Victimae paschali laudes' ('Praises to the paschal victim') and see how it formed part of a medieval play. Gregorian chant is an ancient communal song tradition, much loved for its calming, meditative feel – but we are increasingly appreciating its dramatic and even emotional aspects. This workshop will s...

Matthew Holford, Tolkien Curator of Medieval Manuscripts, and Martin Kauffmann, Head of Early and Rare Collections, in conversation about the artists, patrons and significance of three extraordinary manuscripts. Some of the greatest treasures of medieval painting are not displayed on museum walls but lie hidden – relatively speaking – in manuscript books. Our experts at our introduce some of the l...

Building on the repertoire from our previous workshop, we will add further pieces for Candlemas where everybody is invited to join in by singing the communal response Gregorian chant is an ancient communal song tradition with its roots in the medieval Church, but its calming, meditative effect has made it a surprise hit in lockdown. Sing in the comfort of your own home (where no strangers can hear...

The covers can tell us as much about a book as its contents. This workshop explores the secrets which bookbindings reveal about the uses and histories of medieval manuscripts.

In this online choir workshop you will learn to sing along with a simple voice part from the Candlemas Nunc Dimittis and see the 15th-century manuscript from the Cistercian nunnery of Medingen where the music is preserved in the Bodleian Libraries A Gregorian chant workshop based on the 15th-century Manual for the Provost of Medingen (Bodleian Libraries MS. Lat liturg. e. 18.) This event is part o...

Frank Close tells the story of Klaus Fuchs and the Bodleian Library. Trinity was the codename for the test explosion of the atomic bomb in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. In this talk, Frank Close tells the story of the bomb's metaphorical father, Rudolf Peierls (Prof Close's one time mentor in Oxford); his intellectual son, the atomic spy Klaus Fuchs; and the ghosts of the security services in Britai...

Shiva Mihan, Harvard Art Museums and Bahari Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries, gives a talk on her work in Persian arts. Manuscripts produced in the 15th century under Timurid patrons are among the most exquisite examples of Persian arts of the book. Codices containing sumptuous illuminations and lavish illustrations attracted the mutilating attention of album-makers and art dealers in the...

David Armes (Red Plate Press), the Bodleian’s Printer in Residence 2019-20, describes artists and ideas that influence his work, asking how meaning can mutate through the process of production. And, what impact the physicality of materials has, and how we can read narratives created through improvisational production techniques.

The making, use and trade of manuscripts was an important part of Islamic culture, the technical developments influenced the making of books in the west from the later medieval period onward. When dominance of powers shifted, the perception of the Islamic manuscript tradition also changed. While intricately embellished bindings continued to receive attention, the majority of manuscripts were usual...

Professor Larry Schaaf delivers the 2020 Colin Ford Lecture, providing a fascinating insight into his work on The William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonne. There are approximately 25,000 Fox Talbot prints known worldwide, these range from crude experiments through to highly accomplished works of art. For more than four decades Professor Schaaf has been examining and compiling information on Tal...

Dr Alexandra Lloyd, Lecturer in German, Magdalen College and St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, gives a talk on the White Rose Resistance Group. In 1943 five students and a professor at the University of Munich were arrested, tried, and executed. They were members of The White Rose (Die Weiße Rose), a clandestine group that wrote and distributed pamphlets calling on the Germans to resist Hitler...

6,000 surviving notes and drawings reveal Leonardo da Vinci’s way of thinking. This talk focuses on Leonardo’s second book, On Mechanics, and explores how he later applied mechanical laws to studies for 'useful inventions'.

Join Dr Donal Hill for a tour of the invisible, as he describes how particle detectors measure 3D information to help uncover the secrets of tiny fundamental particles.

Discover how researchers are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to acquire images that show how the heart works on both a whole organ and cellular level. With Dr Kerstin Timm and Dr Justin Lau.

Dr Karl Kinsella introduces a 12th-century manuscript which explores the mystical visions of the prophet Ezekiel and contains some of the earliest architectural drawings in existence.

For 21 centuries, mathematicians worried about a fundamental assumption made by Euclid of Alexandria: that parallel lines must meet at infinity. Could geometry ‘work’ without this assumption? The answer caused mathematicians to reassess the nature of mathematics itself.

Professor Richard Sharpe, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2018-2019 gives the sixth and final lecture in the 2019 Lyell series. Part of the series; Libraries and books in medieval England: the role of libraries in a changing book economy. The histories of libraries in medieval England offer an insight into the intellectual and cultural life of the period. This should not obscure the fact that books m...

Professor Richard Sharpe, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2018-2019 gives the fifth lecture inthe 2019 Lyell series. Part of the lecture series; Libraries and books in medieval England: the role of libraries in a changing book economy. The histories of libraries in medieval England offer an insight into the intellectual and cultural life of the period. This should not obscure the fact that books made...

Professor Richard Sharpe, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2018-2019 gives the fourth lecture in the 2019 Lyell series. Part of the series; Libraries and books in medieval England: the role of libraries in a changing book economy The histories of libraries in medieval England offer an insight into the intellectual and cultural life of the period. This should not obscure the fact that books made for in...